Lando Norris is skeptical about the Las Vegas weekend: Despite the chance to win the world championship, he warns about old McLaren problems and the cool conditions.
Lando Norris is cautious about the Las Vegas Grand Prix. Although McLaren has the opportunity to secure the drivers’ title there for the first time in the 2025 Formula 1 season, the Briton expects a complicated weekend.
Norris leads the overall standings by 49 points ahead of Max Verstappen and would need to extend this gap to at least 58 points after the upcoming race to knock the Red Bull driver out of the title race early.
However, McLaren’s memories of Las Vegas in 2024 are not very positive. At that time, the MCL38 struggled massively with graining. Norris and teammate Oscar Piastri missed out on the top 5 in both qualifying and the race.
Norris: Las Vegas was the worst race in 2024
The team is looking stronger for 2025. McLaren dominates the constructors’ championship, and team boss Andrea Stella believes that the current Pirelli tires are less prone to graining. However, the forecast low temperatures of up to seven degrees Celsius could once again be a problem.
When asked after the race in Sao Paulo whether the cold would affect McLaren, Norris replied: “Affect us, definitely. I think it was our worst race last year. So I’m not really looking forward to it.“
Unlike McLaren, its immediate rivals are likely to benefit from the cool conditions. ”We know that Mercedes was incredibly strong there, as were Red Bull and Ferrari. I think we were at the back of the pack of those four,” Norris said, looking back on 2024.
Playing down expectations? Lando Norris reacts irritably
“Of course, we’ve improved a lot of things this year, so I don’t want to be too negative. Abu Dhabi and Qatar are races we’re looking forward to. Las Vegas a little less so, because it was probably one of our weakest races of the last two years,” said the championship leader.
When a journalist interpreted his assessment as too negative, Norris reacted indignantly: “I can say what I want. I can think what I want. I always try to be as honest as possible. If I don’t think we’ll be fast, then I don’t think so.”
“I’m not saying I’ll finish tenth. I’m just saying it’s going to be difficult to win. Look at last year’s data. Look at the race charts. We were miles off,“ the Brit continued.
”We weren’t fast enough in many races”
Norris also pointed out that McLaren was not dominant in every race in 2025 either: “There were many races this year where we weren’t fast enough. It’s not like we won every race. I’m just saying what I think, whether I believe it will be easy.”
Finally, he made it clear that despite all his skepticism, he remains open to surprises: “We’ve never been good in Vegas, so why should I think it will be easy? Maybe I’ll win, then we’ll see. But I’m not going to lie and say I’m very confident. I’ll do what I want.”
Although McLaren is significantly stronger than last year, Las Vegas remains one of the biggest unknowns on the calendar from the world championship leader’s perspective. The decisive factor will be whether the team has been able to sufficiently eliminate last year’s weaknesses.